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Collection online

painting / album

Object type

Museum number

1920,0917,0.44

Description

Shah ʿAbbas I hawking. Single-page painting mounted on detached album folio. Full-length portrait of Shah holding a hawk. Gold halo around Shah's head. Upper half of image features a green ground and lower half, a brown ground. Several coloured borders followed by dark blue border with vegetal motif in goldleaf. Outermost border features wild animals in goldleaf on light ground. B side contains two lines of Persian script set in wide border of white floral motifs on dark blue ground.

Curator's comments

A small chain has been fastened to the falcon's leg to prevent it flying away at the wrong time. The falcon and the halo are included here as kingly attributes in a portrait of a figure presumed to be Shah Abbas I.